Official Blizzard Quote:

With Patch 5.4, we added a mechanic called "The Crowd Chose You" to Arena gameplay. This mechanic was added to suit two primary goals: keep the game from dragging on too long, and make sure matches always end with one team declared the winner. However, we wanted something that wouldn’t make players feel they needed to change how they played the game. Unfortunately, the implementation of The Crowd Chose You that went live with Patch 5.4 is not filling that last requirement.

So, we’re going to take a different approach. In an upcoming hotfix, we’ll be removing The Crowd Chose You entirely, and replacing it with a new mechanic called Dampening. If a match should last for 10 minutes, all players in the Arena will begin to receive a stacking debuff that reduces healing done by 1% every 10 seconds. This will continue until one team is eventually able to claim the victory. In the extremely unlikely event that neither team has won after 20 minutes, the match will end in a draw.

We feel that this mechanic will have a much smaller impact on playstyle, team composition, and decision making than The Crowd Chose You, and thus result in more fun and exciting matches. We’re currently testing the hotfix internally, and will provide an update when it goes live.

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2v2:
- damp buff kicks in after 7 minutes
- if team A scores a kill, then team B has 1 minute to score a cross kill, or team A gains instantly the current TCCY buff
3v3
- damp buff kicks in after 15 minutes ( i prefer they just leave 3v3 alone tbh)

Please use an appropriate signature; thanks! Use only common abbreviations and acronyms, and then give their definition as soon after their first use as possible. Occasionally, however, an abbreviation or acronym may be so familiar to intended audiences that it may be used without a definition. In fact, some may be more familiar than the full name. http://www.arenajunk...-rules-2272014/

Official Blizzard Quote:

With"]http://us.battle.net...09926&#39;]With[/url] Patch 5.4, we added a mechanic called "The Crowd Chose You" to Arena gameplay. This mechanic was added to suit two primary goals: keep the game from dragging on too long, and make sure matches always end with one team declared the winner. However, we wanted something that wouldn’t make players feel they needed to change how they played the game. Unfortunately, the implementation of The Crowd Chose You that went live with Patch 5.4 is not filling that last requirement.

So, we’re going to take a different approach. In an upcoming hotfix, we’ll be removing The Crowd Chose You entirely, and replacing it with a new mechanic called Dampening. If a match should last for 10 minutes, all players in the Arena will begin to receive a stacking debuff that reduces healing done by 1% every 10 seconds. This will continue until one team is eventually able to claim the victory. In the extremely unlikely event that neither team has won after 20 minutes, the match will end in a draw.

We feel that this mechanic will have a much smaller impact on playstyle, team composition, and decision making than The Crowd Chose You, and thus result in more fun and exciting matches. We’re currently testing the hotfix internally, and will provide an update when it goes live.

all they needed to do for this to work was to pay a real crowd to watch each game and choose a team.. it's not that hard

I was going to comment against this with a snide remark like "No one wants to watch a 1300 match".

But then I saw this:

Mattadoro, on 11 October 2013 - 04:19 PM, said:

pay a real crowd

Now that actually isn't too bad of an idea.... queue up to spectate an arena and if you sit the whole game and make a decision with 4 other players you earn 150-300g depending on the length of the match. Not a bad way to implement a way to make gold in PvP.

Also, while you're here, I'd like to ask why it was decided that Necrotic Strike should be affected by the healing debuff? It means a DK will effectively lose his prime damage component over time.

Because the absorption effect of Necrotic strike effectively becomes more and more powerful as healing gets reduced. This would mean that teams which have this mechanic at their disposal would be at a great advantage once Dampening starts to kick in. The damage component of Necrotic Strike remains the same, however.